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When Business Comes Second, Behind Your Dog

Written by: Carlton Wilkinson12/07/12 - 1:57 PM EST

NEW YORK ( TheStreet) -- So you've got a major business trip planned, been in the works for years and is coming to fruition in a week. Hotel rooms and venues are booked, The presentation has been well-rehearsed. Inventory is fully stocked and ready to start shipping product from the sales the tour will inevitably generate.

The home office and foreign partners are buzzing, ads are bought and paid for, announcing your arrival.

But then you realize the pet that has shared your home and your heart for the last decade or more is much, much weaker. The end is coming and soon, all the signs are there.

In a moving four-page handwritten letter to fans posted on her Web site on Nov. 20, Apple announced she was postponing a tour of South America set to begin Nov. 27 because her pitbull, a rescue named Janet, who had been ill with a tumor for the last couple years, had worsened and was dying. Janet "has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life," Apple wrote.

The dog has Addison's Disease and requires regular Cortisol injections, making it dangerous for her to travel, Apple wrote. And the singer could not bring herself to leave her pet to die by herself or in the care of others.

"Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to pick which socks to wear to bed," Apple wrote. "But this decision is instant . . . I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship."

More Americans now see themselves as living in a multispecies family...Surveys conducted by the pet industry have found that 70% of pet owners in the U.S. share a bed with their animal, a figure unsettlingly close to the percentage of people who share a bed with their spouse. And we show our devotion in how we spend. This year Americans will fork out an estimated $53 billion in caring for their pets.

That booming outlay in pet health care also translates into investment dollars, as noted Friday by TheStreet's Oliver Pursche in his article, Investments That Go to the Dogs (and Cats) . Pursche points out that a customized pet stocks index has returned 25.8% over the last year.

At the close of her article, Pierce confesses, "I've spent more time in the kitchen cooking special meals for my dying dog than I spent cooking for the humans in the house -- and I know I am not alone. Crazy, maybe. But not alone."